Citing your information sources is necessary in order to:
Use the style recommended by your instructor; if none is recommended, choose one style and stick with it for consistency's sake. Both the Library and the Writing Center have access to style manuals for the major citation styles.
MLA - Serves scholars in the humanities (especially literature). When citing, emphasis is placed on authorship; therefore, MLA style require the author’s name within the physical text (i.e. in-text citation). Since many humanities scholars work with texts from all time periods, currency is not always essential. MLA’s “Works Cited” page features the date towards the end of the citation.
APA - The sciences and social sciences are often concerned with currency of information; hence, researchers place emphasis on the date a work was created. APA style observes this by featuring the date immediately after the author’s name in the “References” page. Dates are also required for in-text citations.
CHICAGO - Offers two types of documentation: the Author-Date system is recommended for scholars in the physical, natural and social sciences, in order to showcase the date of publication within the text. Scholars focused on history and art as well as some social sciences are very concerned with origins of sources; Chicago’s Notes-Bibliography style format is preferred for this type of work. In place of in-text citations, it calls for detailed footnotes and/or end notes, to identify the source from which a particular piece of information was derived and provide relevant commentary. Chicago style also calls for a “Bibliography” at the end of the paper.